1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a camera-equipped portable terminal. More particularly, the present invention relates to a portable terminal comprising a camera that can easily send photographs taken by the camera to a recipient, and to a photograph transmission method using the portable terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a portable terminal is a terminal that can be carried with a person and is capable of supporting, through application programs, various functions such as wireless communication. A personal mobile communication terminal, personal digital assistant (PDA), smart phone, International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) terminal and wireless local area network (LAN) terminal are examples of portable terminals.
Early portable terminals were only capable of supporting voice telephone services and short message transmission. Advances in technology have provided portable terminals with various capabilities necessary for image telephone communication, electronic reminder, voice or image storage, Internet access and entertainment. In addition to these capabilities, portable terminals comprising digital cameras have recently been developed. The user can use a portable terminal comprising a digital camera to take preferred moving or still images, store them, use them as background screens, or send such images to an e-mail recipient or another portable terminal.
A camera-equipped portable terminal can store image data transmitted from a base station, and send captured image data to a base station. The portable terminal comprises a camera for photographing images, and a display unit for displaying the images photographed by the camera. The camera may be made of a charge coupled device (CCD) sensor or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The display unit may be a liquid crystal display (LCD) device. The miniaturization of camera-related components has led to a decrease in the size of portable terminals comprising cameras.
A camera-equipped portable terminal is capable of sending taken photographs to another person. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional method of photograph transmission using a portable terminal comprising a camera.
As shown in FIG. 1, when a photograph-taking command is input in a photography mode, the portable terminal takes a photograph of a target object at step S11 and stores the taken photograph at step S13. The portable terminal then determines whether a photograph transmission mode command is input at step S15.
If a command other than the photograph transmission mode command is input, the portable terminal performs an operation corresponding to the input command. If the photograph transmission mode command is input, the portable terminal switches the operation mode to a photograph transmission mode at step S17.
In the photograph transmission mode, the portable terminal receives and displays a telephone number or e-mail address of a recipient at step S19. The portable terminal determines whether a photograph transmission command is input to transmit the photograph taken at step S11 to the input telephone number or e-mail address at step S21. If a photograph transmission command is not input, the portable terminal performs steps S19 to S21.
If the photograph transmission command is input, the portable terminal transmits the photograph taken at step S11 to the telephone number or e-mail address at step S23.
In a conventional photograph transmission method using a portable terminal comprising a camera, sending the taken photograph to the recipient takes a long time because the user may have to take the photograph and then input the address of a recipient.
In addition, to sending multiple photographs to the same recipient, the user may have to input the identical address multiple times.